Reconsider

How to spell reconsider

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce reconsider

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does reconsider mean?

1. verbTo think again about a decision or opinion, often with a view to changing it.

Reconsider in a sentence

• The board agreed to reconsider the budget after the new figures arrived.

• She asked the landlord to reconsider the rent increase.

Where does reconsider come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word is built on 'consider', which English took from the Old French considerer in the 1300s, itself from the Latin considerare, meaning 'to look at closely' or 'to examine carefully'. The Latin verb is widely thought to come from con-, meaning 'with' or 'together', joined to sidus, the word for a star or constellation, so the literal sense may have been 'to observe the stars', perhaps a habit of augurs and navigators who read the night sky. From watching the heavens the meaning broadened to weighing any matter thoughtfully. The prefix re-, meaning 'again', was attached in English in the 1600s to form 'reconsider', literally 'to consider again', that is, to think over a decision a second time. The spelling trap is the single 's' in the middle and the unstressed vowels, so it helps to remember the buried 'sid' star root and the tidy stack of prefixes re- plus con-.

How the word is built

• re- (again)
• con- (with/together)
• sid (from Latin sidus: star, constellation)
• -er (verb suffix)